Download
PDF (54k)
Robert Brown always wanted to be a politician. He was
interested in politics at school and joined the Liberal Society at
Aberdeen University in 1965 filled with the sense that he was in
life to do something. His choice of the Liberal Party over
others was for a number of reasons, "The Liberal Party had a
youthful, radical feeling about it, a change the world sense, an
idealism." He describes this hopefulness and inspiration as
permeating his formative years; the 60s and flower power, the
Kennedys, the Beatles; "that general feeling that you could just
change the world."
The attractive Liberal candidates of the time also helped; Jo
Crimmond was the leader and Jim Davidson was his local member; a
man who his dad said could put his CV on every tree in West
Aberdeenshire and everyone would vote for him (he was a decorated
war hero, a naval guy, a spy, a local farmer…). He goes on,
"I was always attracted by the Great Liberal Government of 1906;
Lloyd George, Asquith, Campbell-Bannerman, going back to Gladstone,
and Beveridge and Keynes more recently."
The very strong youth movement in the Liberal Party echoed the
spirit of protest and optimism that was going on around the world
at that time, in response to the Vietnam War for example and this
belief in progress and the ability of people to change things
pervades his politics and personality. When asked for one
piece of advice, he offers, "take an optimistic and a hopeful view
about life - there are a lot of very good things about life and you
can concentrate on all the dreadful things that happen or you can
devote your energies to trying to make things better and to have a
belief that if life is about anything it's about progress and
improving things and having a contribution to make in a personal
and a social sense".
During the Thatcher era, he detected a narrower, "first after me
kind of attitude" but has seen a change in recent years and
believes in the younger generation now you've "got some very
talented and generous people who I think will do great things in
the world". Issues around young people are key for him and
central to almost everything else, he argues, is the issue of
opportunity for young people. There are about 35,000 young
people in Scotland who have "horrible starts" and "have
extraordinary difficulty in achieving their potential in the
world. It's a horrendous loss to them, it's a huge loss to
the economy and the fabric of society and the country and frankly
we ought to bend every rule as it were to make them have a better
chance in life." The numbers are manageable he believes but there
is still a need to find solutions that work.
Currently the Lib Dem spokesperson for Justice, he talks about
how important early intervention is to break the cycles of
deprivation and criminality. "The longer I'm in it the more I
realise, partly from having had the education portfolio before,
that you can't just isolate off prisoners, the court system, people
who get into some sort of trouble as some sort of errant
group. They are in a sense failures of other things that have
happened in society."
"You can solve a lot of issues to do with criminal behaviour by
tackling issues to do with parenting, to do with family and
deprivation." He sees that so often "those children who
appear before the children's panel at 4 or 5, 6 in need of care and
protection because of problems with parenting, be it abuse or drug
and alcohol addiction are those who come back before the courts at
16, 17, 18 for criminal behaviour. And it's not
particularly surprising when you think about what causes people to
be alienated, angry, that's got to do with bonding, that's got to
do with parental issues, literacy and numeracy, mental health
problems and the frustrations all that causes." Employment
issues are important as well he argues, "If you can't get a job
then you have a sense of rejection; if you don't have skills to
offer the whole thing must be terribly frustrating."
Youth organisations make a "huge difference to what people's
opportunities and attitudes to life are" and he praises the work of
youth organisations like the Scouts, the Boys Brigade and the
Guides in offering opportunities to young people. As part of
the Lab/Lib Dem administration he was Deputy Minister for Children
and Young People and sees the Youth Work Strategy that
administration introduced as being particularly significant in
terms of channeling resources to youth organisations; if he'd had
longer he would really have liked to develop that agenda. He
explained, "It won't be written on the history books but what it
did do was to give focussed help to the head offices of youth
organisations for training, and expanding the volunteers and
leaders they could get and for facilities in local areas."
His support for voluntary organisations is strong and he is
particularly involved in Citizens Advice, an organisation he
believes has always been underfunded, "operated on a
shoestring". National support for these kind of organisations
should be better as although some councils are better than others,
"across the piece I don't think they have been recognised as they
should have been."
"The churches are inspirers"; this is evident in the people
involved in voluntary organisations and the motivation that drives
people to be involved he believes. "I think if you took away
the church, or imagined Scotland without the churches it would be
considerably poorer, both in terms of physical bodies doing things
and the inspiration that lies behind it." He puts a
qualification on this though and warns against people thrusting
"their religious views down other people's throats", for example on
issues such as abortion or religion in schools. Having said
that, he does think there is a place for religion in schools and
supports the direction of travel seen through the developments in
religious observance in recent years saying, "I think our tradition
has been one of managing the two without the extremes we've seen in
other countries."
Although he always wanted to be a politician and has stood in
most elections since 1974 it wasn't until the advent of the "fair
voting system" in the Scottish Parliament that he had the
opportunity to be elected at Parliamentary level. Having
trained as a lawyer and been a depute Procurator Fiscal is wasn't
too big a switch to go from interpreting the laws to making the
laws.
If Brown could introduce just one piece of legislation it would
be something that "guarantees to every young person the fullest
opportunity to develop their talents" and although he realises this
is something that sounds difficult to do with legislation he thinks
it would make the most difference. A smaller thing that he
would like to introduce new legislation on is the law of common
good. This is the property, like botanic gardens, that each
local authority owns that has come down through generations.
"In some instances it's quite substantial and other instances it's
rather small but the councils quite often treat land like that and
land that has been given to it by donors (like parks in Glasgow) as
if it was land like any other and I think it needs greater
protection against people selling off chunks of and putting night
clubs in the middle of it for example."
Outside of politics his big passion is history he explains, "The
whole idea of where societies come from, how they rise and fall,
the great deeds that people have done, the changes that we've made
- I think there are a lot of lessons to learn from these kind of
things. I read history books like other people read romantic
novels or something." Oh and also, "In a minor sort of way I
am also addicted to Newcastle United - the football team with the
biggest support and the least success in modern times of any
football team."